Speaker 1: What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to
this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon
to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you
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my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron,
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smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for
your support. I promised I would play this like two
hours ago, so let me play it now. This is
Governor Spencer Cox of He's the governor of Utah. This
was his comments at the end of the press conference
earlier today.
Speaker 2: I don't want to get too preachy, but I think
it's important that we, with eyes wide open, understand what's
happening in our country today. I've heard I've heard people say,
why are we so invested in this? There's violence happening
all across our country, and violence is tragic everywhere, and
every life taken is a child of God who deserves
our love.
Speaker 3: And respect and dignity.
Speaker 2: This is certainly about the tragic death assassination political assassination
of Charlie Kirk. But it is also much bigger than
an attack on an individual. It is an attack on
all of us. It is an attack on the American experiment.
It is an attack on our ideals. This cuts to
the very foundation of who we are, of who we
have been, and who we could be in better times.
Political violence is different than any other type of violence
for lots of different reasons. One because in the very
act that Charlie championed of expression, that freedom of expression
that is enthrined in our founding documents, in having his
life taken in that very act, makes it more difficult
for people to feel like they can share their ideas,
that they can speak freely. We will never be able
to solve all the other problems, including the violence problems
that people are worried about, if we can't have a
clash of ideas safely and securely, even especially especially those
ideas with which you disagree. That's why this matters so much.
Over the last forty eight hours, I have been as
angry as I have ever been, as sad as I
have ever been, and it was as anger pushed me
to the brink. It was actually Charlie's words that pulled
me back I like to share some of those and
specifically right now, if I could, I need to talk
to the young people in our state, in my.
Speaker 3: State, and all across the country.
Speaker 2: As President Trump reminded me, he said, you know who
really loved Charlie the youths.
Speaker 3: And he's right.
Speaker 2: Young people love Charlie, and young people hated Charlie. And
Charlie went into those places anyway. And these are the
words that have helped me. Charlie said, when people stop talking,
that's when you get violence. He said that week can
never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. The
only way out of the lab of suffering is to forgive.
Welcome without judgment, love without condition, forgive without limit. He said,
always forgive your enemies. Nothing annoys them so much. A
few months ago, I referenced this. Last night, Charlie posted
to social media. When things are moving very fast and
people are losing their minds, it's important to stay grounded,
turn off your phone, read scripture, spend time with friends,
and remember Internet fury is not real life.
Speaker 3: It's going to be okay.
Speaker 2: He again said, when you stop having a human connection
with someone you disagree with, it becomes a lot easier
to commit violence. He said, what we as a culture
have to get back to is being able to have
a reasonable agreement, being able to have reasonable agreement where
violence is not an option. Now, again, to my young
friends out there, you are inheriting a country where politics
feels like rage, It feels like rage is the only option.
But through those words, we have a reminder that we
can choose a different path. Your generation has an opportunity
to build a culture that is very different than what
we are suffering through right now, not by pretending differences
don't matter, but by embracing our differences and having those
hard conversations. I think we need more and moral clarity
right now. I hear all the time that words are violence,
words are not violence. Violence is violence. And there is
one person responsible for what happened here, and that person
is now in custody and will be charged soon and
will be held accountable. And yet all of us have
an opportunity right now to do something different.
Speaker 3: I want to thank my fellow Utah's you know this bad.
Speaker 2: Stuff happens, And for thirty three hours I.
Speaker 3: Was praying that.
Speaker 2: If this had to happen here, that it wouldn't be
one of us, that somebody drove from another state, somebody
came from another country. Sadly, that prayer was not answered
the way I had hoped for, just because I thought
it would make it easier on us if we could
just say, hey, we don't do that here. And indeed,
Utah is a special place. We leave the nation in
charitable giving, we leave the nation in service every year.
But it did happen here, and it was.
Speaker 3: One of us.
Speaker 2: But I want you to look at how Utans reacted
the last two nights. There was no rioting, there's no looting,
there were no cars set on fire, there's no violence.
There were there were visials and prayers and people coming
together to share the humanity. And that, ladies and gentlemen,
I believe is the answer to this. We can return
violence with violence, we can return hate with hate. And
that's the problem with political violence, is it metastasizes because
we could always point the finger at the other side,
and at some point we have to find an off
ramp or it's going to get much much worse. But see,
these are choices that we can make. History will dictate
if this is a turning point for our country. But
every single one of us gets to choose right now,
if this is a turning point for us, we get
to make decisions. We have our agency, and I desperately
call on every American Republican, Democrat, liberal, progressive, conservative, maga,
all of us to please, please, please.
Speaker 3: Follow what Charlie taught me.
Speaker 2: I'll I'll just conclude with uh with words I share
often from a friend, an author you've all lived in,
who was asked if he was optimistic about our country,
and he said, I'm not optimistic. He said, I hate optimism. God,
that sounds bad, but he said, he said, optimism is
a vice. It's this idea that good things are just
going to happen. And he said, in the history of
the world, good things have never just happened. He says,
I'm not optimistic, but I am hopeful. And hope is
the virtue that sits between the vices of optimism and pessimism.
Speaker 3: Hope is the idea.
Speaker 2: That good things are going to happen because we can
make them. So I still believe in our country, and
I know Charlie Kirk believed in our country. I still
believe that there is more good among us than evil.
And I still believe that we can change the course
of history. I'm hopeful because Americans can make it so.
Speaker 1: That's Governor Spencer Cox from Utah, and I would submit
meeting the moment well done.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: When I was a kid, my grandpa died with Alzheimer's,
and before he died, my mom and my dad took
care of him as he got worse. Forty years ago,
there were no treatments and not much support for caregivers
and family. But things are different today because of the
work of so many people, including the Alzheimer's Association of
Western Carolina. It's a great organization with awesome people with
huge hearts. I've been a supporter for twenty five years.
This cause means a lot to me. I participate in
the annual Walk to End Alzheimer's and I'm leading a
Charlotte team again this year and it's called once again
Pete's Pack. You can sign up and you can join
the team and walk with us. It's on October eighteenth
that truest field. Sign up at alz dot org slash
walk and then you can search for my team name
Pete's Pack. There's also a link at the petepod dot com.
There's also a link in the description of this podcast. Also,
I'll be am seeing the Gastonia Walk on October eleventh,
and so you can make a team and join that
one too, or make a donation and help me hit
my goal of five thousand dollars. If you do, I
really appreciate. There are a bunch of other walks all
over the Carolinas. You can go to alz dot org
slash walk for all the dates and locations. We're closer
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Will you walk with me? For a different future, for families,
for more time for treatments. This is why we walk.
You've heard me over the years. Reference and quote Jonathan
Heit Hai Dt his last name. I think I'm mispronouncing that,
but I don't know. And he went on to the
Twitter machine earlier today and he said, we must repudiate
the idea that speech is violence. This has always been
a ridiculously absurd argument, or I shouldn't even say argument,
because it's not. It's an assertion from leftists, and it
started percolating several years ago and it is now sort
of taken as an article of faith that this is true,
and it is most certainly not true. Speech is not violence.
You feeling offended at something I say is not violence
against you. Right, you need better mental health coping skills.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: This is an affliction that is more pronounced among younger
people because they have been told this by the ambassadors
of our trusted institutions, that words are violence and somehow
violence isn't violence, which I was happy to hear the
Governor of Utah make this very point that words are
not violence.
Speaker 3: Violence is violence.
Speaker 1: And this is what Jonathan Hate has been pointing to
as well, and he says Greg Lukianov and I wrote
about the dangers of promoting this idea on college campuses
way back in twenty seventeen. Twenty seventeen, they were saying, guys,
stop promoting this idea at college. And this is what
they wrote in the Atlantic. The implication of this expansive
use of the word violence is that we quote unquote
we we are justified in punching and pepper spraying them,
even if all they did was say words. We are
just offending ourselves against their violence. But at this way
of thinking leads to actual violence, and if that violence
triggers counter violence, then where does that end in the
country's polarized democracy. Telling young people that words are violence
may in fact lead to a rise in real physical violence,
which is true, which is what Charlie Kirk was fighting against.
Words are not violence. But if words give you license
to commit violence, and then your opponent and acts violence
on you, then all you get is violence all the
way down. Now, maybe that's the point when raising up
an army of radicals to undermine and overthrow the cultural
institutions in Western civilization. You need the shock troops. You
need radicals, right, You need these street radicals to go
out there to quote anti Maxine Waters, to get in
their faces at the gasoline stations.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: See, like I again, like I have clarity. I've been
covering the rise of these people in this movement for
a long time, and the tactics change, the issue changes,
but the goal is always the same. Revolution. It is
to tear down the Western civilization by going after these
institutions that make up its foundation. And that goes to
the family, it goes to the churches, it goes to
civic organizations.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: It is an attack on all fronts, and it has
been going on for one hundred years. Free speech properly understood,
is not violence. It is a cure for violence.
Speaker 3: JK.
Speaker 1: Rowling, who has been just an absolute warrior on the
transgender issues, women's rights issues and such, but also as
it relates to those issues, free speech, and she like
she is uncancellable, which you know makes her very formidable
because she is wealthy beyond you know, my wildest dreams. Right,
she's made all this money. She's the author of the
Harry Potter series. And when she saw what was happening
in the UK with the rise of transgender politics and
such and the insanity, and she began speaking out against it,
trying to protect women's sports, women's locker rooms and changing
rooms and bathrooms and such. And she's been savaged for
it ever since. And here's what she said. If you
believe free speech is for you but not your political opponents,
you are illiberal. If no contrary evidence could change your beliefs,
you're a fundamentalist. If you believe the state should punish
those with contrary views, you're a totalitarian. And if you
believe political opponents should be punished with violence or death,
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Speaker 2: UH.
Speaker 1: Kudos to the Charlotte Observer for printing an op ed
by David Mastio. I think he's out of Kansas City. Yeah,
the Kansas City Star. He does a both sides ism
thing here, but I'm going to just focus on the
first part where he addresses this this notion, and here's
the headline. Charlie Kirk died fighting the idea that words
are violence. This idea and even somebody's presence, but words
or their their their mere presence on your campus is
somehow violence. This idea has spread from petty campus authoritarians
out to censor those they disagree with, to the pages
of the New York Times to the broader culture, where
a twenty twenty four poll by the Foundation for Individual
Rights and Expression or FIRE, found that four in five
Americans agree at least slightly with the idea that words
can be violence. The connection between speech and violence has
grown even closer. A report today by FIRE found that
twenty two percent of students at Texas A and M
think that violence at least rarely can be justified to
stop a speech. At UNC Chapel Hill, it's thirty eight percent.
Thirty eight percent of students at UNC Chapel Hill think
violence can be justified to stop a speech. Our democracy
runs on speech. The kind I take part in, the
kind Charlie Kirk took part in on campus before he
was shot, The very kind that the Democratic governor of
Pennsylvania took part in before his house was set on fire.
The kind of Supreme Court justice performed when it would
be assassin came to his home armed with a gun
and knives without speech to resolve odd differences. There is
only violence. Think long and hard about the society you
want to live in. All right, you hear me talk
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with Brett Grennable break Grennables in studio coincidentally enough, how.
Speaker 3: Are you, sir?
Speaker 2: Great?
Speaker 3: How are you? I'm doing okay?
Speaker 1: It's been a heavy week, you know, very heavy heavy.
Speaker 3: Yes, I can I just compliment you on something right
out of the box.
Speaker 1: Always, Yes, you did a great job yesterday over at
over at what He's you had a lot of incoming, man,
Oh yeah, lots of it. And uh but I I
wanted and I get people and you know today I
don't matter. I get people who send me emails and messages.
Why do you let them on the show? Why are
you talking to this you know, crazy lefty person whatever.
But like I have always put them at the front
of the line. You have to, right, because I get
more clarity, and I think other people it's like what
Dennis Prager says, Like I, you know, I seek understanding,
not agreement, right, And if people if people go into
any kind of a discussion or debate, I think with
that mindset, you're looking for clarity, understanding, right, not agreement.
You don't have to agree with me, And and that's
why I bring them on. That's why I want them on.
And uh yeah, because I was. I was on there
with CaCO day in the mornings up in Raleigh. In Greensboro,
I do a live hit with him on Friday mornings
and I asked him, Hey, did you get any calls
yesterday from lefties?
Speaker 3: And he said no? And I said, oh, I said,
I had like four or five. I mean it was everyone.
And he was like, oh, I'm so jealous.
Speaker 1: Can you got to be like a doctor and be like,
can I refer you to to my friend he'd like
to talk to me, right, Yeah, And that's the thing,
like and you, I mean, you actually take way more
calls than I do. But you know, it's it's clarifying.
Speaker 3: That's why.
Speaker 1: That's why I do it. And I want to know
what their arguments are, and more importantly, I want the
audience to hear these arguments the way they're presented. So
this way, if you're in a debate, yes, with family, friends, wherever,
and you hear this argument, yep, you will now be
able to argue against what you've just heard and it's
not going to surprise you in the debate. That's exactly right, right,
that's great. So it's really it's a it's a public service. Really,
I wonder if I can get some us ai D
money for the the public worse.
Speaker 3: Hold on, let me call Doje nice.
Speaker 1: All right, So I want to I did not get
to this and we only have like two minutes here,
but yeah, so I want to.
Speaker 3: I want to get to this.
Speaker 1: You heard the soundbites from our mayor yesterday, I'm sure
during the newscasts.
Speaker 3: I did.
Speaker 1: And she says in this interview with WBTV about the
her response to the light rail murder, and she said,
I admit that, you know, the good thing about it
is not a good thing about the murder, but about
how they're going to work on transparency and communication. She
admits she fumbled the initial responses and all that, which
is true, but she says the good thing is being
able to be in a city where you can say
I made a mistake and people say that's okay.
Speaker 3: TSF TSF system failed.
Speaker 1: Oh right, this is the fail right. So now, I
don't know, I cannot speak for everybody in the city,
but I have not heard anybody saying, yeah, oh it's okay.
Speaker 3: Nobody that is zero, I mean nothing nobody, right.
Speaker 1: I guess she's I guess she's counting the fact that
she won her Democrat primary in like an eight percent turnout,
right and saying, well, that's proof that everybody said, oh,
you completely bricked the.
Speaker 3: Response to this murder.
Speaker 1: You've now garnered national attention to the city because of it,
and you think that you clearing the Democrat primary means
that everyone's like, you made a mistake.
Speaker 3: But it's okay. Yeah, No, it's terrible. No, it's not okay.
Speaker 1: No, I didn't think so either.
Speaker 3: It's really bad.
Speaker 1: We also saw have you seen this? The state auditor
released the probe into the the payoff to the police chief.
Speaker 3: Which day of the week is is?
Speaker 1: I feel like we need one of those boards, like
it's been this many days since a scandal and the.
Speaker 3: City correct they're stacking up. I mean, let's let's be
on it.
Speaker 1: It is being stacked up in a in an inappropriate way.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much
for listening. I could not do the show without your
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and don't break anything while I'm gone.